Hope's Scrapbook
by LilVirga
Summary: While waiting for Hope to get home from school, Bartholewmew shows Lightning, Fang, and Vanille Hope's baby pictures.


**Baby Pictures**

**AN: I'm in the middle of working on my Halloween fic and another fic about the gang going to Nautilus, and decided to write this oneshot. I usually write Fang x Vanille, but felt like writing a Lightning & Hope oneshot for a change.**

**For those who don't usually read my fics Fang and Vanille are alive after FFXIII, So yeah, enough rambling.**

Once again the gang was called in to help scout out the wilderness of Pulse for monsters that might harm the vicinity. They were all going to meet at Snow and Serah's house, Sazh was already there.

So it just left the women and Hope. Though the latter still had thirty minutes left at school.

So Lightning (and Fang and Vanille tagging along much to her distaste) pulled up in front of his house. Bartholemew's car was still there so they knew he was home.

"I guess that means we could go inside." Fang stated, exiting the hoverbike, Vanille tagging behind her.

Lightning cut the engine and exited herself, following the pulsians up the steps.

Vanille pressed the blue green doorbell, the chimes being heard inside the house. Shortly after, Hope's father answered, not wearing his usual business attire but in a light green sweater and khaki pants.

It was clearly his day off.

"Oh, good afternoon ladies." He greeted. "Uh, Hope's not home from school yet."

"Oh we know!" Vanille replied. "But he gets out soon, right?"

"Instead of waiting outside is it alright if we come in?" Fang asked.

Bartholemew nodded, stepping aside so the three women can enter. Just as they walked in, Hope's puppy trotted out of Hope's room, launching himself at Vanille's leg.

"Oh hey, cutie!" She giggled, remembering him from her last visit. (Or break in) "How are you today?"

"So Mr. Esthiem," Lightning began conversation as the group walked to the living room. "you just took today off."

"No, I took the whole week. So I can spend some time with my son." He explained.

Lightning couldn't help but smile a bit at that. Bartholemew was now putting in effort to spend time with Hope. Despite how difficult everything has become since the fall of Cocoon.

"Can I get you girls anything?" he offered, heading in the opposite direction toward the kitchen. "We have some potato chips or..."

"Sure, Thanks Hope's daddy!" Vanille called back as her and Fang plopped onto the sofa. The dark haired pulsian reached for the remote and began flipping through the channels.

Lightning made her way to the smaller couch, watching the television that was going through the different stations.

A sitcom, a documentary about the secrets of Pulse, the news talking about some other psycho, Fang settled the channel on a show about going out to clubs and drama. Lovely.

After about fifteen minutes of watching the ridiculous show and Fang stuffing herself with potato chips, she groaned, leaning on Vanille's shoulder. "It's so boring without Hope to pick fun of."

Lightning rolled her eyes. She wished the pulsian would stop giving the silver haired teen such a hard time just because he was the youngest, and the easiast to get worked up.

Vanille wasn't watching the show but looking through the bookshelf in the corner. (Fang and Vanille are such considerate guests, aren't they?) The redhead pulled out a big red book reading the title of it.

"Is this a scrapbook?" She asked aloud just as Bartholewmew came back from refilling the bowl with more potato chips.

"Yeah. Nora loved to scrapbook." he answered settling the bowl down. Lightning took note of the tone he used when he mentioned his late wife's name.

"So, that means it has baby pictures of Hope right?" Fang asked, eyes burning with mischief yet again.

"Um, yeah suppose there's some in there." He answered, missing the way the dark haired pulsian literally leaped out of her seat, snatching the book out of Vanille's grasp. The redhead sat down next to her and as soon as they opened the book.

"Aw..." The two chorused. Lightning rose an eyebrow at this.

"Lightning," Vanille waved her hand over, gesturing for the pink haired soldier to come over. "You have to see these."

Lightning shook her head, but still found herself getting up from her seat and coming to Vanille's side. Batholemew sat down next to Fang as she place the scrapbook in both her and Vanille's lap so they could all see.

"That's Hope when he was just born." Bartholemew said.

The picture was of Nora, her silver hair long and very messy, the sweat matting her bangs down from the pain she was previously experiencing. But she still managed to smile as she held the bundle of joy in her arms, his wide green eyes staring into the camera.

Next to that picture was one of him in a highchair, his silver hair barely being seen growing on top of his head. His baby face was smeared with some sort of green mush, Bartholemew much younger back then and missing glasses was holding a bright yellow spoon out to the baby, more of the mush overflowing from the small spoon.

"That's me feeding him." Bartholemew said, a genuine smile grew on his face as memories flooded him.

There were a few other pictures of the baby, his wide green eyes and silver hair the only indication that it was the silver haired teen now. Nora practically took a picture of Hope at every moment of his young life.

"That's Hope petting our neighbor's dog...and that's him running away from the dog...and the dog chasing him down the street..."

Fang laughed at that while Vanille continued to aw.

"That's him next to a tree, that's him climbing the tree, that's him dangling from the tree by the courderoys, that's him falling from the tree, and him on the ground-"

"Mr. Esthiem," Lightning interupted. "Instead of taking pictures of your son's fall why didn't you help him."

"Oh, I didn't take the picture. Our neighbor's kid did." And yet they put these pictures in the scrapbook. Fang was dying from laughter while Vanille giggled.

And of course the picture every parent takes, keeps, and shows their friends...

"That's Hope in the bathtub when he was five-"

"DAD!" Hope's voice squeaked loudly when he entered the room.

"Oh, hiya Hope!" Vanille greeted like nothing was wrong. "How was school? Your daddy was showing us your baby pictures."

She clearly was not paying attention to the bright blush that stained his cheeks. Fang was practically sliding onto the floor, the scrapbook falling next to her. When Hope's eyes landed on the picture his face turned even more red.

"Anyways," Lightning cleared her throat awkwardly, knowing Hope was clearly embarrassed, "we have a mission to do."

"Yes," Hope quickly responded reaching over to pick up the scrapbook but Fang snatched it.

"Wait, haha, wait, I just haha, want to see it...one more time." She looked at the photo again, tears streaming out of her eyes as a whole new fit a laughter started up again.

"It's not that funny!" He stormed off to his room to grab his boomerang.

Vanille was giggling but still felt bad for the young teenager. Lightning was pretending to not care about the situation. But secretly...

_Hope was so cute as a baby...wait...did I seriously just think that?_

She shook her head and Fang struggled to stand back up, her legs buckling. "Mr. Esthiem, heehee, can you give me a copy of that picture."

"ABSOLUTELY NOT!" Hope barked as he exited his room and making a beeline to the front door. "Can we go now."

"Sure, Hope." Lightning answered as Vanille pulled on Fang's hand toward the door.

When the four were outside...

"Hey Hope," Fang called out, "I knew you had a cute little ass."

Hope blushed harder at the comment and Lightning sent a glare Fang's way. She didn't know if it was because Fang had, in fact, looked at Hope's ass in the past, or because she addressed it in front of her.

_But he does..._

Lightning wanted to slap herself at the thought and where she glanced.

_Focus Lightning, we have a mission to do!_

**AN: Yeah I don't know if it was any good. Fang and Vanille are usually mch easiar to write for me.**

**Anyways, I hope it was still okay, Reviews are always welcome (NO BASHERS) and if you are a Lightning x Hope fan that's just started reading one of my fics, I thought you should know I like to slip in Lightning x Hope moments in my other fics.**


End file.
